THE HOME GOVERNMENT (1804-1808).
For more than twenty years the history of France was the history of
Europe; for more than fifteen years the history of Napoleon was the
history of France, but a history cruelly bloody and agitated, often
adorned with so much glory and splendor, that the country might, and in
fact did, indulge itself in long and fatal illusions which drew down
bitter sufferings. All this life of our country, however, was not
dissipated afar off in the train of its victorious armies, or its arrogant
ambassadors; if old France was sometimes astonished to find herself so
much increased that she ran the risk of becoming one of the provinces of
the Empire, she always remained the centre, and her haughty master did not
forget her. Carried beyond her territory by the wild instinct of ambition,
he did not renounce the home government of his first and most famous
conquest. Seconded by several capable and modest men to whom he
transmitted peremptory orders, often modified by them in the execution,
Napoleon founded again the French administration, formerly powerful in the
hands of the great minister of Louis XIV., but destroyed and overthrown by
the shocks of the Revolution. He established institutions, he raised
monuments which have remained while all the dazzling trophies of his arms
have disappeared, while all his conquests have been torn from us, after
worn out France, bruised and bleeding, found herself smaller than at the
end of the evil days of the French Revolution.
"Scarcely invested with a sovereignty, new both to France and to himself,"
said Count Mollien in his memoirs, "Napoleon imposed upon himself the task
of ascertaining all the revenues and expenses of the state. He had
acquired patience for the details from the fact that, in his campaigns, he
depended entirely upon himself for the care of securing food, clothing and
pay of his armies." On the eve of Austerlitz, after immense efforts made
by the government as well as the public, to re-establish order and
activity in a country so long agitated and weakened by incessant shocks,
the measure of new enterprises had been exceeded; embarrassments extended
from public to private fortunes, all the symptoms of a serious and
impending crisis were already shown. Napoleon did not hide this from
himself, but he saw and sought for no other remedy than victory. Passing
before Mollien, when going to theatre, he said to him, "The finances are
in a bad way, the Bank is embarrassed. I cannot put these matters right."
For a long time the fortune as well as the repose of France was to depend
upon the ever doubtful chances of victory; long she submitted to it with a
constancy without example. The day came when victory was not sufficient
for our country, she had not strength enough to support the price of her
glory. The Emperor Napoleon was deceived in seeking the sources of public
prosperity in conquest; the blood which flows in the veins of a nation is
not restored as soon as another nation, humiliated and vanquished, shall
in its turn give up drop by drop its blood, its children, and its
treasures. Society is exhausted unless war contributions and exactions
definitively fill the coffers of the victor. The long hostilities of
Europe, and our alternate successes and reverses, have sufficiently taught
us this hard lesson. Victor or vanquished, France has never completely
crushed her enemies, she has never been crushed by them. All have
suffered, all still suffer from this outrage on the welfare of society,
which is called a war of conquest. In the beginning of his supreme power,
Napoleon thought to find in victory an inexhaustible source of riches. "It
was the ideas of the ancients which Napoleon applied to the right of
conquest," said Mollien.
He learnt even on the morrow of the battle of Austerlitz that victory is
not sufficient for the repose and prosperity of a state; the expenses
necessitated by the preparations for war, the enormous sums which the
treasury had had to pay, the general crisis in the commercial world had
induced the minister of the treasury, Barbé Marbois, to have recourse to
hazardous enterprises entrusted to unsafe hands. "You are a very honest
man," the emperor wrote [Footnote: The "Négociants réunis."] to his
minister, "but I cannot help believing that you are surrounded by rogues."
Six weeks after the battle of Austerlitz, on the 26th January, 1806,
Napoleon arrived at Paris in the night and summoned a council of finance
for the following morning. The emperor scarcely permitted a few words to
be addressed to him on a campaign so promptly and gloriously terminated.
"We have," he said, "questions to deal with which are more serious; it
appears that the greatest dangers of the state are not in Austria; listen
to the report of the minister of the treasury."
"Barbé Marbois commenced the report with the calm of a conscience which
has nothing to reproach itself," adds M. Mollien. He soon showed how the
receipts, constantly inferior to the indispensable expenses, had obliged
the treasury to borrow, first from the receivers-general, then from a new
company of speculators at the head of whom was M. Ouvrard, a man of
ability, but of doubtful reputation; the brokers as they were called, had
in their turn engaged the state in perilous affairs with Spain, and the
commissions upon the receivers-general, which had been conceded to them,
enormously surpassed their advances. "The State is the sole creditor of
the company," Marbois said at last. The emperor got in a passion. His
prompt and penetrating mind, always ready to distrust, discovered by
instinct, and without penetrating into details, the fraud to which his
minister was blind. He called before him the brokers, the principal clerks
at the treasury, and confounding them all by the bursts of his anger, he
forgot at the same time the respect he owed to the age and character of
Marbois, who was suddenly dismissed, and immediately replaced by Mollien.
"I had no need to listen to the entire report to guess that the brokers
had converted to their own use more than sixty millions," said Napoleon to
his new minister; "the money must be recovered."
The debts of the brokers to the public treasury were still more
considerable: Mollien had to find the proof and ward off in a great
measure the dangers resulting to the treasury from this fatal association
with a company of speculators.
Two years later the emperor placed Barbé Marbois at the head of the Court
of Accounts which he had just founded. He did not admit the want of repose
or a wish for retirement. For a moment Mollien had hesitated to accept the
post imposed upon him by his master. He was director of the _caisse
d'amortissement_ (bank for redemption of rents), and was satisfied with
his place. "You cannot refuse a ministry," said the emperor, suddenly,
"this evening you will take the oath." Count Mollien introduced important
improvements into the management of the finances. The foundation of the
bank of service, in current account with the receivers-general, book-
keeping by double entry, formerly brought into France by Law, but which
had not been established at the treasury, the publication of annual
balance sheets, such were the improvements accomplished at that time by
the minister of the treasury.
The public works had not been neglected in this whirlwind of affairs which
circled round Napoleon. He had ordered vast contracts in road and canal-
making; in the intervals of leisure which he devoted to France and the
home government, he conceived the idea of monuments destined to
immortalize his glory and to fix in the spirit of the people the
remembrance of the past, on which the new master of France, set much
value. He repaired the basilica of St. Denis, built sepulchral chapels,
and instituted a chapter composed of former bishops. He finished the
Pantheon, restored to public worship under the old name of Sainte-
Geneviève, ordered the construction of the arcs de triomphe (triumphal
arches) of the Carrousel and l'Etoile, and the erection of the column in
the Place Vendôme. He also decreed two new bridges over the Seine, those
of Austerlitz and Jena. The termination of the Louvre, the construction of
the Bourse, the erection of a temple consecrated to the memory of the
exploits of the great army and which became the church of the Madeleine,
were also decreed. In the great range of his thoughts, which constantly
advanced before his epoch and the resources at his disposal, Napoleon
prepared an enormous task for the governments succeeding him. All have
laboriously contributed to the completion of the works which he had
conceived.
At the same time that he constructed monuments and reorganized the public
administration, Napoleon desired to found new social conditions. He had
created kings and princes; he had raised around him his family and the
companions of his glory, to unheard-of fortune; he wished to consolidate
this aristocracy, which owed all its splendor to him, by extending it. He
had magnificently endowed the great functionaries of the Empire; he wished
to re-establish below and around them a hierarchy of subalterns, honored
by public offices and henceforth, for this reason, to have themselves and
families distinguished by hereditary titles. In the speech from the
throne, by which he opened the session of the legislative body in 1807,
Napoleon showed his intentions on this subject. "The nation," said he,
"has experienced the most happy results from the establishment of the
Legion of Honor. I have created several imperial titles, to give new
splendor to my principal subjects, to honor striking services by striking
recompenses, and also to prevent the return of any feudal titles
incompatible with our Constitution."
Thus it was that, by a child of the Revolution, still possessed by most of
its doctrines, a nobility was to be created in France. The country was not
deceived. The emperor could make dukes, marquises, counts, barons; he
could not constitute an aristocracy, that slow product of ages in the
history of nations. The new nobles remained functionaries when they were
not soldiers, illustrious by themselves as well as by the incomparable
lustre of the glory of their chief.
The emperor gained battles, concluded treaties, raised or overthrew
thrones; he founded a new nobility, and decreed the erection of
magnificent monuments by the simple effort of his all-powerful will; he
imagined that his imperial action had no limit, and thought himself able
to command the master-pieces of genius as well as the movements of his
armies. He was not, and had never been, indifferent to the great beauties
of intellect, and his taste was shocked when he was extolled at the opera
in bad verses.
In his opinion, mind had its place in the social state, and should be
everywhere regulated as a class of that institute which he had
reconstituted and completed. He had already laid the foundations of a
great university corporation, which he was soon to establish, and which
has since, in spite of some defects, rendered such important services to
the national education and instruction. In the session of 1806, a project
of law, drawn up by M. Fourcroy, Director of Public Instruction, had made
the fundamental principles known. By the side of the clerical body, to
whom Napoleon would not confide the public education, he had imagined the
idea of a lay corporation, which should not be subject to permanent vows,
while at the same time imbued with that _esprit de corps_ which he had
come to look on as one of the great moral forces of society. Under the
name of the Imperial University, a new body of teachers was to be
entrusted with the public education throughout the empire; the members of
this body of teachers were to undertake civil, special, and temporary
obligations. The professional education of the men destined to this
career, their examinations, their incorporation in the university, the
government of this body, confided to a superior council, composed of men
illustrious by their talents; all this vast and fertile scheme, due in a
great measure to the aid of Fontanes, was afterwards to be developed in
the midst of the storms which already commenced to gather around France.
Napoleon had long conceived the project, but deferred the details to
another time, waiting until he had created the nursery which should
furnish France with learned men, whose duty was to educate the rising
generation. The all-powerful conqueror, in the midst of his Polish
campaign, and in his winter-quarters of Finkestein, prepared a minute on
the establishment of Écouen, which had been recently founded for the
education of poor girls belonging to members of the Legion of Honor. I
wish to quote this document, which, though blunt and insolent, shows much
good sense, in order to show how this infinitely active and powerful mind
pursued at once different enterprises and thoughts, stamping on all his
works the seal of his character and his personal will.
"This establishment must be handsome in all that relates to building, and
simple in all that relates to education. Beware of following the example
of the old establishment of St. Cyr, where they spent considerable sums
and brought up the young ladies badly. The employment and distribution of
time are objects which principally demand your attention. What shall be
taught to the young ladies who are to be educated at Écouen? We must begin
by religion in all its strictness. Do not admit on this point any
modification. Religion is an important matter in a public institution for
young ladies. It is, whatever may be said to the contrary, the surest
guarantee for mothers and for husbands. Let us bring up believers, and not
reasoners. The weakness of woman's brain, the uncertainty of their ideas,
their destiny in society, the necessity of constant and perpetual
resignation, and a sort of indulgent and easy charity; all this cannot be
obtained, except by religion, by a religion charitable and mild. I
attached but small importance to the religious institutions of the
military school of Fontainebleau, and I have ordained only what is
absolutely necessary for the lyceums. It is quite the reverse for the
institution of Écouen. Nearly all the science taught there ought to be
that of the Gospel. I desire that there may proceed from it not very
charming women, but virtuous women; that their accomplishments may be
those of manners and heart, not of wit and amusement.
"There must, therefore, be at Écouen a director, an intelligent man, of
middle age and good morals. The pupils must each day say regular prayers,
hear mass, and receive lessons on the catechism. This part of their
education must be most carefully attended to.
"The pupils must then also be taught arithmetic, writing, and the
principles of their mother tongue, so that they know orthography. They
must be taught a little geography and history, but be careful not to teach
them Latin or any foreign tongue. To the eldest may be taught a little
botany, or a slight course of physics or natural history, and even that
may have a bad effect. They must be limited in physics to what is
necessary to prevent gross ignorance or stupid superstition, and must keep
to facts, without reasonings which tend directly or indirectly to first
causes.
"It will afterwards be considered if it would be useful to give to those
who attain to a certain class a sum for their clothing. They might by that
get accustomed to economy, to calculate the value of things, and to keep
their own accounts. But, in general, they must all be occupied during
three fourths of the day in manual work; they ought to know how to make
stockings, chemises, embroidery--in fact, all kinds of women's work. These
young girls ought to be considered as if they belonged to families who
have in the provinces from fifteen to eighteen thousand francs a year, and
be treated accordingly. You will therefore understand that hand-work in
the household should not be indifferent to them.
"I do not know if it is possible to teach them some little of medicine and
pharmacy, at least of that kind of medicine which is within the reach of a
nurse. It would be well also if they knew a little part of the kitchen
occupied by medicinal herbs. I wish that a young girl, quitting Écouen to
take her place at the head of a small household, should know how to cut
out her dresses, mend her husband's clothes, make her baby-linen, and
procure little comforts for her family by the means usually employed in a
provincial household; nurse her husband and children when ill, and know on
these points, because it has been early inculcated on her, all that nurses
have learnt by habit. All this is so simple and trivial as scarcely to
require reflection. As to dress, it ought to be uniform and of common
material, but well made. I think that on that head the present female
costume leaves nothing to be desired. The arms, however, must of course be
covered, and other modifications adopted which modesty and the conditions
of health require.
"As to the food, it cannot be too simple; soup, boiled beef, and a little
_entrée_; there is no need for more.
"I do not dare, as at Fontainebleau, order the pupils to do their own
cooking; I should have too many people against me; but they may be allowed
to prepare their dessert, and what is given to them either for lunch or
for holidays. I will dispense with their cooking, but not with their
making their own bread. The advantage of all this is, that they will be
exercised in all they may be called on to do, and find the natural
employment of their time in practical and useful things.
"If I am told that the establishment will not be very fashionable, I reply
that this is what I desire, because it is my opinion that of all
educations the best is that of mothers; because my intention is
principally to assist those young girls who have lost their mothers, and
whose relations are poor. To sum up all, if the members of the Legion of
Honor who are rich disdain to put their daughters at Écouen, if those who
are poor desire that they shall be received, and if these young persona;
returning to their provinces, enjoy there the reputation of good women, I
shall have completely attained my end, and I am certain that the
establishment will acquire a high and genuine reputation.
"In this matter we must go to the verge of ridicule. I do not bring up
either dressmakers, or waiting-women, or housekeepers, but women for
modest and poor households. The mother, in a poor household, is the
housekeeper of the family."
The spirit of the age and the fascinations of luxury in an agitated epoch
were too strong for the determined and reasoned will of the legislator.
The houses of the Legion of Honor were not destined to become the best
schools for the mothers of families "in modest and poor households."
Napoleon had well judged the superior influence of daily example when he
said, "My opinion is, that the best education is that of mothers." The
wisest and most far-seeing rules know not how to replace it. Religion
cannot be taught by order, like sewing or cooking. The great lesson of
daily virtue and devotion will ever remain the lot of mothers.
The delicate question of female education carried the mark of the Emperor
Napoleon's genius for organization. He had also sought to reduce to rules
the encouragement that power owed to genius. Since the year 1805, he had
instituted prizes every ten years, intended to recompense the authors of
the best works on the physical sciences, mathematics, history, the author
of the best theatrical piece, the best opera, the best poem, the best
painters and sculptors; "so that," according to the preamble of the
decree, "France may not only preserve the superiority she has acquired in
science, literature, and the arts, but that the age which commences may
surpass those which have preceded it."
It would be an arrogant pretension for the nineteenth century to assert
its superiority over its illustrious predecessors, the sixteenth,
seventeenth, and eighteenth century, in all that concerns literature or
art. However, we have had the good fortune and the honor to be witnesses
of a wonderful display of creative genius in France in all branches of
literature and art; we have seen orators, poets, artists who could take
rank with the most illustrious chiefs of the ancient schools; all this
splendor, all this national and peaceful glory, has only taken root in
regular liberty and constitutional order. The troubles of the French
Revolution, the violent and continual emotions of the war, above all the
rule of an arbitrary will, which opened or shut at pleasure both lips and
printing-presses, had not been propitious to the expansion of human
thought under the reign of the Emperor Napoleon. Those who possessed a
spark of the admirable gift of genius, preserved at the same time in their
hearts that passion for liberty which necessarily ranked them among the
enemies or suspected persons. At the height of his supreme power, Napoleon
could never suffer independence either of thought or speech. He long
persecuted Benjamin Constant after he had taken his place among the
members of the Tribunate; and he manifested a persecuting aversion towards
Madame de Staël, which betrayed that littleness of character often lying
hid under a greatness of mind and views. When I turn over the table of
contents of that immense correspondence of Napoleon which reveals the
entire man in spite of the prudence of the editors, I find continually the
name of Madame de Staël, joined to rigorous measures of spiteful epithets.
"I write to the Minister of Police to finish with that mad Madame de
Staël," he wrote on the 20th April, 1807, to the Count Regnault St. Jean
d'Angely, who had apologized for his correspondence with the illustrious
outlaw. "She is not to be suffered to leave Geneva, unless she wishes to
go to a foreign country to write libels. Every day I obtain new proofs
that no one can be worse than that women, enemy of the government and of
France, without which she cannot live;" and several days previously he
wrote to Fouché, "When I occupy myself with Madame de Staël, it is because
I have the facts before me. That woman is a true bird of bad omen; she
believes the tempest already arrived, and delights in intrigues and
follies. Let her go to her Lake Leman. Have not the Genevans done us harm
enough?"
Inspired from other sources than Madame de Staël was, but as ardent in his
opposition to the sovereign master of the destinies of France,
Chateaubriand supported, like her, the flag of an independent spirit and
of genius against the arbitrary will of one man. He manifested this in a
brilliant manner. Already famous by the publication of his _Genius of
Christianity_, he was then writing in the _Mercure_. "Eighteen months
before the publication of the _Martyrs_," says M. Guizot, in his memoirs,
"in August, 1807, I stopped several days in Switzerland, when going to
visit my mother at Nîmes, and in the eager confidence of youth, as curious
to see celebrated persons as I was unknown myself, I wrote to Madame de
Staël to ask for the honor of an interview. She invited me to dinner at
Ouchy, near Lausanne, where she then resided. I was seated by her side,
and having come from Paris she questioned me on all passing there, what
people were saying, what occupied the public and the salons. I spoke of an
article by Chateaubriand in the _Mercure_, which attracted attention at
the moment of my leaving. One sentence had particularly struck me, and I
quoted it word for word, for it was fixed in my memory: 'When in the
abject silence the only sound heard is the chain of the slave, and the
voice of the informer, when all tremble before the tyrant, and it is as
dangerous to incur his favor as to merit his displeasure, it seems to be
the historian's duty to avenge the people. The prosperity of Nero is in
vain, Tacitus is already born in the empire, he grows up unknown by the
ashes of Germanicus, and already a just providence has delivered to an
obscure child the glory of the master of the world.' My accent was
doubtless impressive and full of emotion, for I was impressed and moved
myself. Madame de Staël seized me quickly by the arm, saying, 'I am sure
that you would act tragedy admirably; stop with us and take a part in
_Andromaque_.' That was her hobby and amusement of the moment.
"I resisted her kindly suggestion, and the conversation came back to
Chateaubriand and his article, which was much admired, and caused some
anxiety. There was reason to admire it, for the passage was truly
eloquent; and also cause for anxiety, for the _Mercure_ was suppressed
precisely because of that passage. Thus the Emperor Napoleon, conqueror of
Europe, and absolute master of France, thought that he could not suffer it
to be said that his future historian would perhaps be born under his
reign, and felt himself obliged to take the honor of Nero under his
protection. It was scarcely worth while to be such a great man to have
such fears to show, or such clients to protect."
If the emperor pursued with anger the spirit of opposition in the salons,
which he endeavored ceaselessly to rally around him, and if, above all, he
feared their glorious representatives, Madame de Staël and Chateaubriand,
he watched still more harshly the newspapers and the journalists. His
revolutionary origin, and the early habits of his mind had rendered him
hostile to that liberty of the press which flourished under the
Constituent Assembly, withered away under the Legislative Assembly, and
expired during the Terror in a sea of blood. When Daunou wished to insert
the liberty of the press in the constitution of the year VIII., he
encountered great opposition on the part of former Jacobins. They and
their friends had secured the right of saying always what they chose, and
knew the means of preserving what they had acquired at the price of many
massacres; the liberty their adversaries demanded appeared to them
dangerous and unjust. Such has always been in the main the revolutionary
idea, and the Emperor Napoleon had not forgotten this theory and this
arbitrary practice. However, he also knew what might be the influence of
the periodical press, and he endeavored to submit to the discipline of his
will the small number of newspapers which existed under his reign. "Stir
yourself up a little more to sustain public opinion," he wrote to Fouché,
on the 28th April, 1805. "Print several articles, cleverly written, to
deny the march of the Russians, the interview of the Emperor of Russia
with the Emperor of Austria, and those ridiculous reports, phantoms born
of the English fog and spleen. Say to the editors, that if they continue
in their present tone I will pay them off; tell them that I do not judge
them hardly for the bad things they have said, but for the little good
they have said. When they represent France vacillating on the point of
being attacked, I judge that they are neither Frenchmen nor worthy to
write under my reign. It is all very well to say that they only give their
bulletins; they have been told what these bulletins are; and since they
must give false news, why not give them in favor of the public credit and
tranquillity?"
The _Journal des Débats_, in the first rank of the periodical press, under
the intelligent direction of the Bertins, had already been favored with a
special inspector, whose duty was to superintend its editing, and to whom
the proprietors of the paper were forced to pay 12,000 francs a year.
Fouché had menaced the other papers with this measure of discipline, by
ordering them to "put into quarantine all news disagreeable or
disadvantageous to France." This patriotic prudence did not long suffice
for the master. "Let Fiévée know that I am very dissatisfied with the
manner in which he edits his paper," he wrote, on the 6th March, 1808. "It
is ridiculous that, contrary to the rules of good sense, he still
continues to believe all that the German papers say to frighten us about
the Russians. It is ridiculous to say that they put 500,000 men in the
field, when, for the coalition itself, Russia only furnished 100,000 men,
while Austria furnished 300,000. It is my intention that he should only
speak of the Russians to humiliate them, to enfeeble their forces, to
prove how their trashy reputation in military matters, and the praises of
their armies, are without foundation." And the same day to Talleyrand: "It
is my intention that the political articles in the _Moniteur_ should be
guided by the foreign relations. And after seeing how they are done for a
month, I shall prohibit the other papers talking politics, otherwise than
by copying the articles of the _Moniteur_."
We have known the dangers and the formidable effects of an unlimited
liberty of the press. Never was it more licentious than when just
recovered from a system arbitrarily oppressive. The fire which appears to
be extinct smoulders under the ashes, to shortly break out with new fury.
The thirty-three years of constitutional régime which France had enjoyed,
powerfully contributed to the moderation of men's acts, and even their
words, at the time of the revolution of 1848. The outburst of invectives
and anger which saluted the fall of the Emperor Napoleon, had been slowly
accumulated during the long silence imposed under his reign.
Arbitrary and despotic will succeeds in creating silence, but not in
breaking it at a given time, and in a specified direction. In vain did
Napoleon institute prizes every ten years; in vain did he demand from the
several classes of the Institute reports on the progress of human thought
since 1789. Literary genius remained deaf to his voice, and the real
talent of several poets of a secondary order, Delille, Esmenard,
Millevoye, Chênédollé, was not sufficient to triumph over the intellectual
apathy which seemed to envelope the people he governed. "When I entered
the world, in 1807," said Guizot, "chaos had reigned for a long time; the
excitement of 1789 had entirely disappeared; and society, being completely
occupied in settling itself, thought no more of the character of its
amusements; the spectacles of force had replaced for it the aspirations
towards liberty. In the midst of the general reaction, the faithful heirs
of the literary salons of the eighteenth century remained the only
strangers in them. The mistakes and disasters of the Revolution had not
made the survivors of that brilliant generation abjure their ideas and
desires; they remained sincerely liberal, but without pressing demands,
and with the reserve of those who have succeeded little and suffered much
in their endeavors after reform and government. They held fast to the
liberty of speech, but did not aspire to power; they detested, and sharply
criticised, despotism, but without doing anything to repress or overturn
it. It was an opposition made by enlightened and independent spectators,
who had no chance and no desire to interfere as actors."
Thus it was that the lassitude of the superior classes, decimated and
ruined by the French revolution and the Terror, inspired by the splendid
and triumphant military despotism, contributed together to keep the public
mind in a weak and supine state, which the sound of the cannon alone
interrupted. I am wrong; the great men, naturalists or mathematicians, who
had sprung up, either young or already ripe, in the era of the French
revolution--Laplace, La Grange, Cuvier--upheld, in the order of their
studies, that scientific superiority of France which has not always kept
pace with literary genius, but which has never ceased to adorn our
country. The personal tastes of the emperor served and encouraged the
learned men, even when their opinions had remained more independent than
suited him. He sometimes reproached Monge, his companion during the
campaign of Egypt, that he had remained in his heart attached to the
Republic. "Well, but!" said the great geometrician, gayly, "your Majesty
turned so short!"
Napoleon had certainly _turned short_, and he expected France to follow
him in the rapid evolution of his thought. Jealous of his right to march
in the van and show the way to all, he indicated to dramatic authors the
draft of their theatrical pieces, and to painters the subject of their
paintings. "Why," he wrote to Fouché, "should you not engage M. Raynouard
to make a tragedy on the transition from the first to the second race?
Instead of being a tyrant, his successor would be the saviour of the
nation. It is in pieces of that kind that the theatre is new, for under
the old régime they would not have been permitted." On the other hand, and
by an unconscious return to that fear of the house of Bourbon which he
always instinctively felt, Napoleon opposed the representation of a
tragedy of Henry IV. "That period is not so remote but that it may awake
the passions. The scene should be more ancient."
The passions sometimes awake easily, at points where no threatening or
danger appeared. Immediately after the consecration and the Concordat,
what could be more natural or simple than a wish to draw up a catechism
for the use of all the schools? The organic articles had declared that
there would be only one liturgy and one catechism for all the churches of
France. At first the court of Rome made no difficulty. The Abbé Emery,
Superior of St. Sulpice, gave an excellent piece of advice to Portalis,
the Minister of Religion. "If I were in the emperor's place," said he, "I
should take purely and simply the catechism of Bossuet, and thus avoid an
immense responsibility." Napoleon had a liking for Bossuet's genius and
doctrine, and the idea pleased him. The new catechism intended to form the
minds and hearts of coming generations was placed under the patronage of
Bossuet, "that celebrated prelate, whose science, talents, and genius have
served the Church and honored the nation," said Portalis in his report.
"The justice which all the bishops of Christendom had rendered to the
memory of this great man, is to us a sufficient guarantee of his accuracy
and authority. The work of the compilers of the new catechism is in
reality but a second copy of Bossuet's work."
The great bishop would certainly have felt some difficulty in recognizing
certain pages of the work so prudently presented under his aegis. Strictly
faithful to the spirit of the Gospel as to the supreme equality of all men
in the presence of God, whatever might occasionally have been his
consideration for the wishes of Louis XIV., Bossuet, when expounding the
fourth commandment, the respect and submission due by children to their
parents, was satisfied with adding,--"What else is commanded to us by the
fourth commandment? To respect all superiors, pastors, kings, magistrates,
and others."
The submission of the subjects of Louis XIV. was known to him, and
therefore that exposition was enough in his time. Portalis was of opinion
that immediately after the French Revolution the principles of respect and
obedience ought to be more exactly defined. "The point is," he wrote to
Napoleon, on the 13th February, 1806, "to attach the conscience of the
people to your Majesty's august person, by whose government and victories
the safety and happiness of France are secured. To recommend subjects
generally to submit to their sovereign would not, in the present
hypothesis, direct that submission towards its proper end. I therefore
thought it necessary to make a clear explanation, and apply the precept in
a precise manner to your Majesty. That will prevent any ambiguity, by
fixing men's hearts and minds upon him who alone can and really ought to
fix their minds and hearts."
Napoleon readily coincided with the pious officiousness of his Minister of
Religion, and undertook to draw up himself the question and answer in the
new catechism. "Is submission to the government of France a dogma of the
Church? Yes; Scripture teaches us that he who resists the powers resists
the order of God; yes, the Church imposes upon us more special duties
towards the government of France, the protector of religion and the
Church; she commands us to love it, cherish it, and he ready for all
sacrifices in its service." The theologians, whom Portalis said he always
distrusted, pointed out that, the Church being universal, her dogmas could
not inculcate respect for a particular government. It was therefore drawn
up afresh, and was so extended that the commentary on the fourth
commandment became longer than the exposition of the principle itself. I
wish to give here the actual text as a curious document of the spirit of
the time.
LESSON VII--_Continuation of the Fourth Commandment_.
_Question._ What are the duties of Christians with reference to the
princes by whom they are governed; and what are our special duties towards
Napoleon I., our emperor?
_Answer._ Christians owe to the princes by whom they are governed, and we
owe specially to Napoleon I., our emperor, love, respect, obedience,
fidelity, military service, the tribute ordered for the preservation and
defence of the empire and his throne; we also owe him fervent prayers for
his health and for the temporal prosperity of the State.
_Q._ Why are we bound to perform all those duties towards our emperor?
_A._ First, because God, who creates empires, and distributes them
according to His will, by loading our emperor with gifts, both in peace
and in war, has established him as our sovereign. Secondly, because our
Lord Jesus Christ, as well by His teaching as His example, has taught us
Himself what we owe to our sovereign: at His birth His parents were
obeying an edict of Caesar Augustus; He paid the prescribed tribute-money;
and just as He has ordered us to render to God the things that are God's,
He has also ordered us to render unto Caesar the things that are
Caesar's.
_Q._ Are there no special motives which strengthen our attachment to
Napoleon I., our emperor?
_A._ Yes; for it is he whom God has stirred up, during difficult
circumstances, to restore the public worship and holy religion of our
fathers and be its protector. He has brought back and preserved public
order by his profound and active wisdom; he defends the State by his
powerful arm; he became the Lord's anointed by the consecration which he
has received from the sovereign pontiff, head of the Church universal.
_Q._ What ought we to think of those who fail in their duty towards our
emperor?
_A._ According to the apostle Paul they resist the order established by
God Himself, and render themselves worthy of eternal damnation.
_Q._ Are those duties which we owe towards our emperor equally binding
upon us with regard to his legitimate successors in the order established
by the constitution of the Empire?
_A._ Yes, certainly: for we read in the Holy Scripture that God, Lord of
heaven and earth, by a disposition of His supreme will, and by His
providence, gives empires not only to one person individually, but also to
his family.
_Q._ What are our obligations towards our magistrates?
_A._ We ought to honor them, respect them, and obey them, because they are
the depositaries of our emperor's authority.
The catechism was revised and corrected by a theological commission, by
Portalis, by the emperor, and by the cardinal legate himself, in spite of
a formal prohibition which he had received from Rome. "It does not belong
to the secular power to choose or prescribe to the bishops the catechism
which it may prefer," wrote Cardinal Consalvi on the 18th August, 1805.
"His Imperial Majesty has surely no intention of arrogating a faculty
which God trusts exclusively to the Church and Vicar of Jesus Christ."
Caprara had kept the Secretary of State's despatch sealed, and when at
last the text of the catechism appeared, in 1806, it had received his
approbation. By an article in the _Journal de l'Empire_ of the 5th May,
1806, the court of Rome learnt that a catechism was soon to be published,
uniform and obligatory for all the dioceses of France, with the official
approbation of the cardinal legate. A despatch of Cardinal Consalvi,
expressing to Caprara the astonishment and displeasure of the sovereign
pontiff, remained secret and without effect. The influence of the court of
Rome upon their envoy failed before the seductive power, mixed with fear,
which Napoleon had exercised upon Cardinal Caprara since his arrival. The
French bishops were not less troubled than the Pope. "Has the emperor the
right to meddle in those matters?" wrote Aviau, Bishop of Bordeaux, to one
of his friends; "who has given him the mission? To him the things of
earth, to us the things of heaven. Soon, if we let him, he will lay hands
on the censer, and perhaps afterwards wish to ascend the altar."
One modification only was granted, on the demands of the bishops supported
by Cardinal Fesch. In contempt of Bossuet and his teaching, the standing
doctrine of Catholicism, "Out of the Church there is no safety," had been
omitted in the new catechism. That phrase being restored, the catechism,
invested with the approbation of the legate, was published in the
beginning of August, 1808. Placed in the alternative of contradicting or
recalling Caprara, the court of Rome prudently remained silent.
Differences of opinion were now accumulating between the Pope and the
emperor--between the spiritual authority, which still preserved some
pretensions to independence, and the arbitrary will of the conqueror,
resolved to govern the world, Rome included. We at last reach the moment
when the excess of arrogance was about to provoke the effect of contrary
wills. We shall now see the Pope captive, the Spanish people in
insurrection, the climate and deserts of Russia leagued together against
the tyrannical master of Europe. England had never accepted the yoke; and
she had everywhere seconded resistance. For the future, it was not alone
by sea, nor by the assistance of subsidies, that she entered the lists;
Sir Arthur Wellesley was now in his turn to join in the struggle.
A last act of the absolute will of the Emperor Napoleon signalized that
period of the interior government of France which preceded the war in
Spain and the campaigns in Germany and Russia. It was the suppression pure
and simple, by a "senatus-consulte," of the "Tribunate" formerly
instituted with so much pomp, and which had gradually fallen into
insignificance, owing to the successive changes it had undergone, and to
the secrecy imposed on its deliberations. The absolute power could support
neither contradiction nor even the appearance of discussion, however
moderate it might be. The lively remembrance, however, of an eloquent and
daring opposition was still associated with the name of the Tribunate.
Some honored names had survived the great silence. "The abolition of the
Tribunate will be less a change than an improvement in our institutions,"
said M. Boulay de la Meurthe in his report, "because, since the
constitution of the empire the Tribunate only appears useless, out of
place, not in harmony with the times." The Legislative Body formed a place
of refuge to the members of the Tribunate who were in exercise: they took
their places as a right among its ranks, where they were no more heard of,
annihilated by the servitude that reigned around them. Their admission
into the Legislative Body had, however, been graced by an appearance of
liberality: the right of discussion was restored to that assembly.
M. de Fontanes took care beforehand to indicate what spirit was to preside
at their discussions. "These precincts, which have wondered at their
silence, and whose silence is now at an end, will not hear the noisy
tempests of popular harangues. May the tribune be without storms, and may
the only applause be at the triumphs of reason. Above all, may truth
appear there with courage, but with wisdom, and may she shine there with
all her light! A great prince must love her brightness. She alone is
worthy of him, why should he be afraid of her? The more he is looked at,
the more he rises; the more he is judged, the more is he admired." By the
mouth of Carrion-Nisas, the Tribunate thanked the emperor for having
discharged it from its functions. "We believe," said they, "that we have
not so much arrived at the end of our career, as attained the object of
all our efforts, and the recompense of our devotion." Being now certain of
the docility of the great bodies of State, and no longer uneasy about that
of the magistracy, all the obnoxious members having been weeded out by his
orders, the Emperor Napoleon could turn his thoughts abroad. The question
was how to place King Joseph on the throne of Spain.